What does Jimmy Carter have in common with Richard III? Who is Jon Olson? What do Constantine and James Herriot have in common? What is so great about York Minster? These and other questions will be answered, at long last, in our continuing journey through Britain.

York is underrated, really underrated. Of course the country side is lovely, All Creatures on PBS, taught us that. The city is great as well, marked by the best of Britain. . . combining old world streets (the Shambles), fun Ye Olde Tourist Shoppes, and a first-class modern city. Avoid what bothers you, there is something for everyone in York.

From my visits, York appears (by European standards) to have a vibrant Christian community. If you want to visit the official center of British Christendom, go to Canterbury. If you want to visit a Cathedral with Christians in it, go to York Minster. (York Minster is a cathedral because it has a bishop and a minster because that is the ancient name for important churches and York Minster is very ancient.)

As the great city of northern England, York has history from Roman to modern times and I don’t just mean a pile of rubble from each period. York mattered and Americans too often miss it while marching on to the next tourist site.

Amazingly, Constantine the Great became Roman Emperor in York. It is fashionable in modernist circles (and some fundamentalist ones) to denigrate Constantine. Without arguing for his sainthood, I will just make the unremarkable observation that he ended Christian persecution without making us the “official religion” of the Roman Empire. He favored the Church without making it a wing of the state. That seems on the whole a good thing and at the very least it made the York that produced James Herriot possible. . . manifestly a Good Thing.

It is a remarkable reminder of how Europe is less united today than it was in ancient times when we recall that the founder of Constantinople (called by some Istanbul) was launched on his wonderful career in Northern England. Someone who ends centuries of bloodshed should at least get a favorable comment or two from friends of liberty, but since he loved Christ’s church the secularists cannot stand him.

Historical revisionism can work both ways. If Constantine, a basically good ruler who saved the East from a Dark Age, is now in disfavor, York is working hard to salvage the Yorkist king Richard III from the War of the Roses.

The War of the Roses continues to this day in York where the White Rose is everywhere. Almost no American can actually keep track of the players in the War of the Roses which makes our own civil war seem a walk in the park. Having spent some fun summer light reading in Brit work on the topic, I discovered a whole arcane world of arguments and counter-arguments (the Duke of Clarence!) to delight the most crazed seeker of useless controversies. The most famous historical figure associated with York is Richard III.

There are a small group of historians and a larger group of the public who attempt to defend the Murderous Uncle. They have an interesting group that has quite a few good things to say in defense of Richard. Our sparkling and quite brilliant tour guide was a fan of the group and since I am the world recorder holder for eccentric ideas found in one person, I don’t reject it on that score.

Some ideas are just too compelling to dismiss no matter how hard the partisans try. The stench of Richard’s crimes is just too strong to cover up with any amount of maybes. . . though he may not have been as bad as Shakespeare makes him, who this side of Stalin is, but he still. . . ended up King. . . and where are those young princes?

It seems more likely that there is a monster in Loch Ness, stuff like that does happen, than that a man becomes king, his rivals vanish, and he had no part in their death. When has that happened?

Still. One. Must. Have. An. Open. Mind.

In my quest for truth, I had the misfortune to end up in the Richard III Museum in York. You must click on this link to hear some of the all time worst reading of Shakespeare.

In fact, the place is so badly done that I began to pity it. . . feeling as if I were picking on the tourist-trap handicapped. It is filled with laminated copies of photocopied arguments hanging on back drops where the fabric was not even stitched. Imagine your seventh grade report on “Peru: Land of the Inca and Promise.” Now imagine it twenty years later being viewed by folk who paid good money to see it. You have the idea.

Don’t go. Don’t think about going. The city contains a fine wall to walk, numerous first class gardens, and great shopping. I battle cynicism in myself daily. . . and this museum set me back a month.

In any case, the key argument in the museum seems to be this: Richard III did not have a hunchback as Shakespeare (the cad!) said, so Richard did not kill his nephews. In fact, all the Richard III folk seem fixated on the White Rose of York’s lack of a hump.

Now it seems true (I was persuaded!) that Tudor propagandists (nasty bunch!) added the hunchback to Richard, but a lack of a physical deformity is no more proof of virtue than having one is a proof of vice.

Here is the bottom line: Richard swore to protect his nephews and see one of them on the throne. His nephews went missing and Richard suddenly was king. Now it is possible that the nephews killed themselves in an act of Yorkist piety to clear the way for Richard (seeing he did not have a hunchback), or that their friends killed them just to make Richard look bad (so they could later claim he had a hunchback), or that The Master from Buffy killed them.

Call me simplistic, but as attractive as those ideas (especially the last) might be it seems much, much more likely that Richard III murdered those innocents, broke his oath to is brother, and usurped the throne.

Forget about his back. . . such a man just has a crooked soul.

Americans should not sneer at this historical revisionism. . . since we do it while people are still alive to remember the sorry incompetence of the person being rehabbed. The best example is the constant media quest to make us forget the real Jimmy Carter and accept a new and improved media generated image of Jimmy Carter. For the youngsters reading this blog, Jimmy Carter was president from 1976-1980 and was manifestly bad at it. He has also been our worst ex-President ever this side of Franklin Pierce who was inept, a drunk, and openly betrayed the nation.

Carter seems to have no clue about how an ex-President conducts himself, getting involved in all sorts of foreign policy issues, defying the common sense wisdom that ex-Presidents should be very sparing in their criticisms of the present President.

Jimmy Carter has, however, visited the Princess Diana school of self-conscious PR charity work. He was rewarded by the Establishment for this with a Peace Prize having managed to maintain his own personal peace of mind while cultivating a working relationship with some of the worst terrorists in history.

When upset by such historical revisionism the best thing to do is to go to a world class cathedral. Those tempted to fall for the Judas Iscariot argument and suggest that churches should be utilitarian need only experience York. A vibrant worship service in a cathedral hits every sense a man has. It is true that one can worship God in a warehouse, but bringing God our best. . . and being hit by the sights, smells, and sounds of our best is better.

In York, I had the pleasure of the company of Jon Olson. He is witty, has not become faux-English while a grad student there (harder than you think), and knows so much more than I about Milton that I just wanted to provoke him to hear him talk. One of the best things about this trip was getting to meet the chums. . . and Olson’s insights into life in England were some of the best.

In short, my time in York reminded me that the heart of England still beats. The Church has not yet vanished. . . even if modernists of the American sort beset it. It is full of delightful eccentricity, but also the sort of world-class education that can take people like Jon Olson to the next level. It is not wonder the US has a special relationship with such a place.